QRZ Logbook

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Congrats to George's daughter

My apologies for not having TWIAR edition #860 available on the web site. This weekend, my daughter and Bill Barans son Zachary successfully passed their technician exams and should have their call signs this week. This endeavor to have yet another ham in my family has taken up considerable time, which resulted in edition 860 not being available. Please look for a brand new This Week in Amateur Radio and TWIARhn (Edition #861) this coming weekend October 10th. This weeks Edition #245 of TWIARi International is now up and available.73 George - Executive Producer

This Week in Amateur Radio

Looks like George has a decent excuse this week.

I've been trying to get my daughter Lauren (age 9) motivated into getting her ticket before next June, when the question pool will change. We got started late in the summer, and she was very motivated. But, as time went on, she started to get distracted with her friends, TV, etc. My quagmire is that I will not push her because I don't want her to get licensed because I want her to, but because she wants to get her license.

It's tough to keep her motivated and not seem pushy. She hasn't looked at the book for a couple of weeks now. But, my other daughter Amber (who turned 8 last Sunday) has now expressed an interest in ham radio as well. Perhaps a little competition is good for motivating them. They tend to be competitive in many things (as sisters tend to be) so maybe I need to light a fire under Lauren by teaching Amber.

I also can try to find an all-day class where they spend about 8 hours learning the question pool, and then they take the exam the following day. Problem is, where to find one around here?

I took my sister-in-law to one of these classes when she was 13 and very much interested in getting a license. Unfortunately she didn't pass the exam (missed by 3 questions) but she kept at it and got her license about a month later. She ended up letting her license expire, but she spoke to me recently about wanting to get it again.

Maybe I ought to conduct my own session with all three of them. Although my patience threshold would be equivalent to that of Lewis Black.